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My Language Goals: June

It’s a brand new month which means brand new beginnings! This year I want to start keeping track of my language goals, what I set out to do and what I am actually accomplishing. I figured what better way than by joining in on Clear The List which is hosted by Kris Broholm, Angel Pretot, Shannon of Eurolinguiste, and Lindsay Does Languages! This is where I’ll be discussing what I want to accomplish in a given month and then looking back to see how much of it I actually got done.

Hey everyone! Okay, so I know I disappeared for several months but SO much happened in that time. Between an immense level of stress at work and some personal things that I won’t bore you with, I was simply overwhelmed by it all. I know it happens to all of us and so I am not going to beat myself up for not posting in awhile. On the bright side, even though I was not posting, I was still studying when ever I got the chance, although I have made a few alterations to my initial plans at the start of the year. After January I quickly realized that I was taking on too much given the other things going on in my life at the time.

I’ve decided for the time being until things ease up a bit more that I am going to focus primarily on my one true love: Korean. Some days I have more time to study and others I only have 20 minutes but one thing I do know is that I always want to spend it studying Korean, one way or another. I mentioned to my boyfriend the other day that Korean was the language of my heart…and he laughed…but I was 100% serious. Having studied several languages in my life, I feel connected to them all in some way and obviously I love them but there is this undeniable pull to Korean that I felt the moment I heard it 10 or so years ago. If I were to sum it up…Korean is my language soulmate. That is incredibly cheesy isn’t it???! Am I the only one that feels this way or are others so attached to a particular language?

That being said…Korean is HARD. Studying Korean on my own is HARD. Not having anyone to share this journey with is HARD. I’m still at such a beginner level and the knowledge I do have is all over the place sometimes. Like the fact that I can name a plethora of animals but have difficulty recalling how to say bathroom! I guess “Where is the zebra” will have to do in that situation…I sometimes feel so stagnant in my language growth even though when I step back I can see that even in these past few months I have picked up a lot more than I knew before. Whether it be understanding a line in a song or a text that my friend sends me, I get super giddy just knowing that at one point I didn’t know those words at all. I don’t want to dwell on the negative or how slow the process seems to be going, rather I want to celebrate all those small victories.

Goals for June

Listening:

This is the one goal I never have an issue with because I tend to always have a show, a youtube video, or music playing. But I am hoping to include more Glossika and KoreanClass101 and Talk to me in Korean podcasts.

Reading:

One thing I am doing to improve the speed of my reading is listening to some Korean songs with the lyrics on Youtube and trying to read along. This also has been helping my pronunciation which is always a bonus.

I will also be using some written dialogues as well as a very short children’s book I will be working my way through.

Writting:

I started a small daily journal where I write down 3 or 4 sentences, no matter how small or simple they are. I hope to make it a set routine.

I’ve been going through the first 50 Glossika sentences and doing dictations with them. I’ve been taking about 10 sentences at a time, I listen to the sentence and write it down without looking at the written version and then correct myself after and note the mistakes I’m making and then repeat the process until I spell all the 10 sentences correctly before moving on. I’m finding this is a great way for me personally to utilize Glossika.

Another goal is to write more in Korean to my friends, I’ll interject words or small phrases into our conversations but I want to start sending more complete sentences.

Speaking:

This one is the hardest for me to keep up with since I don’t get as many opportunities to speak to other speakers. I do have to admit that I speak to myself a lot of in Korean, especially when practicing pronunciation. My main goal is to find more situations where I can speak Korean. A new Korean restaurant opened near by and I managed to say a few phrases to the owner, so I hope I can go back and speak some more even if it just small phrases.

Okay, that is all of the upcoming month! I will sprinkle in more study materials in between such as Memrise and a couple textbook lessons but I want to make sure to keep in open for whatever calls to me during the month. I hope you all have a successful month of language learning ahead!

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13 thoughts on “My Language Goals: June”

Joining clear the list may just be the best thing you choose to do this year, I’ve found it fantastically motivating and supportive. I like your targets, particularly the music and lyrics combo and writing every day. Look forward to seeing how it turns out at the end of June! Good luck.

Thank you for your words! ^^ I am really enjoying the lyric approach because it helps me in a lot of areas and makes me pay attention to what is actually being said rather than just singing along with no real concept of the words. My boyfriend on the other hand is not a big fan because it means he has to listen to me play the same song again and again haha

Hello and welcome back to posting then! You’re absolutely right, sometimes life gets in the way and it makes no sense to beat yourself because you didn’t get enough studies done. Your positive attitude is refreshing!
Oh and you are not alone in being in love with a language. I actually wrote some thoughts about that recently and many people nodded along, so you’re definitely in good company: a bunch of other language learners feel that way too! 🙂
Good luck with your goals in June!

Oh my god, I can totally relate to what you are saying. Korea sure can be hard and progress is slow. But I can see you have a lot of good tools to help you out. How do you like Glossika? I hear a lot about it, but I hesitate to give it a try. But I think learning “sentences” instead of words would help me have a better structure before to try creating my own. Best of luck, Judith, for your monthly goals. 화이팅!!

Thank you so much for your words of encouragement! ^^ I was pretty hesitant to give Glossika a try as well and to be honest I’m not currently using it in its intended way but I love the fact that I have 3000 sentences at my disposal! It helps me practice my listening and also dictation as I can be pretty bad at spelling in any language haha! I find that 90% of my fear in writing Korean sentences is the question of if this is even spelled right. I would recommend that if you do get it later on, that you find what way works best for you and how to get the most out of it personally. What are some of your favorite resources so far?

Exactly the same problem with writing! I can say the sentence, but always doubt the spelling, which makes me check almost every word whenever I’m about to write something, even a simple thank you to a tutor.

These days, I like to use Pimsleur, as they are dialogs with full sentences as well. It improves my confidence and vocabulary sticks better. And I don’t have to stay in front of a computer to use it. However, I would not use this method alone.

Best of luck! If you are busy and want to practice speaking try just recording yourself speaking on your phone. Much easier than trying to arrange a skype call. If you have a korean friend you can also send it to them and they can correct you (what I do for Italian). Also if you are writting each day you should submit it to lang-8 so that native speakers can correct it for you. I always find that really helpful 😁👍🏻

Good luck with your goals in June!
For pronunciation, I like to sing along, mostly disney songs, I don’t know how they sound in Korean though… You’re so right : don’t stuck on negative things, if it’s not a little difficult, it is not worth it 😛

“Am I the only one that feels this way or are others so attached to a particular language?”

I feel this way with English which is not my mother language. I consider it my one true love because it’s how it all got started. My love for English has led me to where I am now.
French is a close second.

“Like the fact that I can name a plethora of animals but have difficulty recalling how to say bathroom! ”

Ugh, I know the feeling and it’s frustrating, to say the least!

I love your positive attitude though. You’re definitely getting somewhere and I’m glad to see you acknowledging that 🙂

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Hey everyone!
I have always had a passion for learning languages, but it is often too easy to feel discouraged and unmotivated when you are doing it on your own. I wanted to create this space as a way to chronicle my journey and as a means to look back and see how far I have come. This is by no means a teach all to learning languages but rather a look at my process, however flawed it may be at times. I hope you will join me on this journey as I learn new things and make mistakes! Feel free to share your stories and tips with me as well!